Translanguaging and Trans-Semiotizing for Critical Integration of Content and Language in Plurilingual Educational Settings

Abstract

Arising in Europe in the early 1990s, content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has become a popular educational approach. CLIL involves a dual focus on content and language learning with an additional language used as the medium of instruction. Although CLIL has received much attention and spread widely around the world, there is limited discussion that critically examines CLIL in relation to its core construct of integration between content and language learning. In particular, the phrasing of ‘content and language integrated learning’ gestures towards viewing language and content as separate entities. With these fundamental issues in mind, we discuss ways in which translanguaging pedagogies can provide a fruitful direction towards a critical integration of content and language learning in multilingual settings. With a view to contributing to a dynamic integration of content and language learning, we argue that CLIL pedagogies informed by translanguaging allow fluidity in meaning-making practices and critically re-examine the construct of language in CLIL. This approach responds to recent calls for more critical approaches to CLIL in order to challenge ‘English-only’/target-language-only pedagogies, ‘native-(English-)speakerism’, and unequal power relations between content and language teachers in many CLIL programs. Implications of this approach to CLIL classrooms in diverse settings are also discussed.

Descansamos-xiuxiamos: a case study of a teacher’s translanguaging practices and attitude in an L3 Spanish audio-oral classroom at a Chinese university

“…As is common, the teacher in the current study had been using various translanguaging practices without being formally introduced to the concept. Previous studies suggest that training can help teachers to apply translanguaging more effectively in a multilingual context, thereby encouraging the creation of more critical content and language-integrated learning to improve teaching performance and students' learning outcomes (Wang, 2019;Sohn et al, 2022).…”

Effective vocabulary interventions for young emergent bilinguals: A best‐evidence synthesis

“…Recognising that positivist approaches highlighted in this review aim to establish generalisable patterns and follow the dominant paradigm informing the science of reading, future interventions could add qualitative (and perhaps formative) assessments and analyses to (quasi‐)experimental studies to examine language and literacy performances across languages and better reflect the approximations in EBs' vocabulary breadth and depth of knowledge. In the same vein, future research should design vocabulary interventions with a translanguaging theoretical orientation and pedagogical approach given the dynamic bilingual progressions found in EBs' language and literacy development to enhance their conceptual knowledge and underlying vocabulary (Bosma et al., 2023; García & Flores, 2013; Sohn et al., 2022).…”

The Effectiveness of Opinion Gaps, Reasoning, and Information Tasks in Improving Speaking Skills

“…This traditional method gives the wrong impression that students will be able to speak easily through memorising and using grammar when speaking. However, this traditional method has proved to be ineffective in improving effective communication skills (Fang et al, 2022;Sohn et al, 2022). As such, a task-based learning movement has emerged that brings real-life situations into the classroom.…”